1- What will you do when someone posts your picture on a pornographic website?2- What will you do when someone posts an old picture on Facebook, a picture that you don't want the whole world to see?

Recently, I saw #2 on Facebook. Someone had posted a picture that was taken during a party, a year ago. The other person, who is in the picture, saw the image and immediately requested to take it off.

The questions: Who has the right to post a picture in which you are also involved? Do you want everyone to know about your personal activities? What will happen if the other person ignores your request? Do you have the right to protect yourself?

Still these issues are not taken seriously. However, these issues will be much more discussed about in the coming months. I am sure.

Another less serious one, that took place again on Facebook, was when an old group picture was posted and every individual in the picture was tagged. One person requested the picture to be removed, because he/she did not like the picture or did not want everyone to see his/her old picture.

A rather serious, what is called cyberbullying, happened with a decent person, whose profile was cropped and attached to a nude body, and this person's real phone number was posted.

These are not generic cases and they are not the majority.

However, it doesn't end here... Here's another article that I read in Aztag newspaper in Armenian, publised on Nov. 5:

There are at least two views, regarding the issues mentioned above. The first one, is more permissive, saying that these issues will not be serious concerns in the coming years, because everyone will be uploading pictures and videos of their activities. Hence, no one will feel threatened or even interested, because of the vast amount of videos found online. While, the second view asks for more rules and regulations, so that everyone would benefit from the internet, instead of feeling that their privacy is being invaded.

What can be done, then? Should we get rid of this whole new technology, called the internet? This would be the simplest and easiest, yet deficient procedure.I propose that what can at least be done and should be done is educating the youth and the young adults about their proper internet use, and teaching them how to behave online in the proper manner.

Raffi

Your turn. Have you thought about these issues? Have you had similar incidents?